


Idol

by HopeCoppice



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Body Swap, Canon-typical angelic bullying, Fluff, M/M, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-08
Updated: 2019-12-08
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:14:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21717487
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HopeCoppice/pseuds/HopeCoppice
Summary: Why do the Archangels hate Aziraphale so much anyway?
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 36
Kudos: 260





	Idol

**Author's Note:**

> Another of those random ideas that get stuck in my head, with the added caveat that I've got a stinking cold so this may make even less sense than usual. Enjoy!
> 
> (NB: Anyone waiting for Falling from Grace, I haven't forgotten, I just need a bit of a break and I'll be back to it. Sorry!)

The Almighty had never mentioned the sword, or any other aspect of his conduct in the garden, again; Aziraphale had finished walling up his gate and returned to Heaven to find that it had changed somewhat in his absence. God was not available to be spoken to, and in Her place stood the Archangels.

The Archangels, it transpired, did not particularly like Aziraphale. He had met them all before, before his assignment to Eden, and they'd seemed friendly enough then, but it seemed that had changed in his absence, too.

“What have you done, Aziraphale?”

“I- er- I saw him afterwards, but I really don’t think he got in through _my_ gate.”

“Who?”

“Er, the demon- serpent-”

“Oh, nobody cares about him." Gabriel rolled his eyes. "He got in somehow, but I doubt he got out. After all, you all sealed your gates. But the humans. You haven’t been fraternising with them, have you?”

“Fraternising?” Aziraphale frowned at the unfamiliar word. “I’m not sure what-”

“Talking to them. Making _friends_.”

“Oh! No, not really. I asked Adam what he’d named a few things-”

“Well, try not to get involved. The humans are supposed to love _God_ , not you. These ones will die off, sooner or later, and then you’re not to set yourself up as any sort of authority over the rest of them.”

“No. No, of course not. I’ll, ah, I’ll be more humble. Thank you, Gabriel, for the reminder.”

* * *

By the time of King Arthur’s court, Crowley had noticed it too. They were standing in line at the same blacksmith’s, waiting for - well, Aziraphale had dropped something or other in for repairs a few days ago, and hopefully the smith would remember what, because it was really just an excuse for this meeting - and Aziraphale had just recounted some of the less sensitive, and more irritating, details of his latest trip back to Heaven to make his report.

“They don’t like you much up there, do they?”

“I am an _angel!_ ”Aziraphale blustered. “I am a member of the Host, and loved accordingly-”

“Yes, yes, of course. No offence meant.” Crowley held his hands up, as if in surrender. “I just meant… they’re not very nice to you, are they? What did you ever do to them?”

“Oh, I don’t know. I think that’s just how they are. _Nice_ is a human invention, they’ve no use for it up there.”

“Hm.” Crowley collected his freshly-made morningstar - every spike a sharply-forked snake’s tongue, and Aziraphale clucked disapprovingly at the vanity of it - and turned back to him. “Was it always like that?”

“You should know,” Aziraphale snapped, in lieu of an answer, although he was in no way certain that Crowley remembered Heaven at all.

“I suppose I should,” Crowley told him with a reproachful glare, and went on his way.

* * *

“Well,” Gabriel declared, upon his return to Heaven, “he’s definitely still doing it, whatever it is he’s doing. Have any of you found any trace of his cult?”

“Not yet,” Uriel admitted, “nothing to account for the strange feeling coming off him. I’ve inventoried all the major museums, and not a shred of evidence of any Order of Aziraphale stretching back six thousand years. Nothing remotely like that.”

“I checked some of the warrior cults of old, and there’s nothing that could be him there, either. Or more peaceful groups, for that matter.” Sandalphon huffed. “Nothing to suggest he hasn’t kept his head down and followed orders. Nothing we can use to bring him in.” Sandalphon was obviously frustrated, and making no attempt to hide the fact; he would dearly love to get his hands on a rebellious Principality. Humans just succumbed too quickly to smiting.

“I thought I might check the Earth Observation Files, if we’re all in agreement?” Michael suggested, and Gabriel nodded firmly.

“Yes. Do whatever you have to, all of you. Somehow, this pathetic little angel has been pulling the wool over our eyes since the Garden of Eden, and it’s not because he doesn’t want us judging his taste in _sushi_.” The Archangel glared around at his colleagues. “Do whatever it takes to find out why Aziraphale feels _loved_.”

* * *

At Tadfield Airbase, Aziraphale watched as a group of children defeated the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse as easily as if they were nothing more than a game they’d made up. For a moment, it seemed the crisis had been averted - and then Gabriel showed up.

“So these are your followers, are they? These are the worshippers you’ve been so keen to flaunt over the centuries?”

“I’m an atheist,” Pepper began, but Adam shook his head in warning and she fell silent.

“Never mind that,” Beelzebub hummed, and then the two managerial entities started trying to persuade Adam to end the world after all, tragically unaware of the simple fact that human children cannot be managed. Failing that, they resorted to threats about telling his Infernal Father, threats which they very generously extended to Aziraphale and Crowley, too, before disappearing.

“What was that about-?” But that was when Crowley hit the ground, and Satan was on his way, and the strangeness of the conversation was all but forgotten in the chaos of what happened next.

* * *

Crowley stared out through Aziraphale’s eyes and tried not to betray any emotion as Gabriel smirked at him.

“And you see, we worked it out. Very sneaky, making us think you had an army of followers tucked away somewhere on Earth. When it didn’t fade with the deaths of the first humans, we naturally assumed there was a vast lineage carrying it on. That you’d set yourself up as an idol, right under our noses - but of course, you’re not clever enough to do something like that. Oh, no, what you _actually_ did was worse. You enthralled a demon, and you never even reported it to Heaven so that we could _use_ it.”

“Is that what you think?” Crowley raised a single eyebrow in what he hoped was an expression of mild amusement and complete disinterest.

“It’s what we know, Aziraphale.” Uriel shook their head in disappointment. “You came back from Eden, and you felt _loved_. It was obvious that somebody worshipped you.”

“Is that why you never liked me?” Although he kept Aziraphale’s voice calm and level, Crowley felt anything but.

“At first, yes. But then you picked up so many other little bad habits.”

Crowley was glad Aziraphale wasn’t there to hear it - not just because he would be facing Hellfire at any moment, but because he couldn’t bear the thought of Aziraphale learning of the depth of Crowley’s feelings for him in this way, learning that Crowley had loved him since the dawn of time, and that it was Crowley’s fault Heaven had always looked down on him, and finding that it was too late to actually process any of it because he was about to step into the flames that would destroy him.

Since Aziraphale _wasn’t_ there, though, Crowley had the opportunity to scare the grace out of some Archangels, and he took it with glee.

* * *

Aziraphale glared at Beelzebub through Crowley’s eyes as the litany of his ‘crimes’ drew to a close.

“And it’s the strangest thing,” the Prince of Hell added, “Heaven seem to think you were worshipping an angel, all those years. From the moment you first met your Principality in Eden. That’s idolatry, that is, that’d be a proper sin. Commendable, maybe. Only that’s not all they said. They said for all those centuries, that Principality has felt _loved_. Apparently they can sense it. Funny, izzn’t it? And _love’s_ not demonic at all.” Ze didn’t bother waiting for a reply, turning instead to the assembled demons. “How do you find the accuzzzzed?”

“Guilty! Guilty! Guilty!”

Aziraphale wasn’t sure what possessed him to take Crowley’s jacket off, nor what made him think it was a good idea to keep going, shedding waistcoat and shirt and that strange little scarf thing he always wore, but at least it gave him a little processing space.

Crowley loved him. Well, he’d suspected that for years, hadn’t he? It had never been safe to acknowledge it - though the demon had shown it in a million little ways - and so Aziraphale had thought it safest to pretend he didn’t know, to tell _himself_ he didn’t really know for sure. Apparently, though, hiding it from himself had done nothing to hide it from everyone else. Just as he’d sensed that Lower Tadfield was loved - _flashes of love_ \- the Archangels had obviously sensed Crowley’s love for him, even if they’d misinterpreted it.

Crowley had loved him since the Garden. _That_ couldn’t possibly be true. Crowley was a demon; he didn’t have the patience to love him in silence for so long. Demons were not patient. _Love is patient._ Aziraphale shook his head slightly, remembering himself just in time to turn it into a serpentine neck-stretching movement. He had a part to play here, after all, and he couldn’t let the facade slip now.

He was just glad Crowley wasn’t really about to climb into a bathtub full of Holy Water - oh, he wondered if he could do it without getting his socks wet; the demons were getting too restless to risk faffing about taking them off, but there was nothing worse in the world than the feeling of wearing wet socks. Well, besides fizzling away to nothing like that little round creature, Aziraphale imagined, or perhaps having your feelings for your best friend rubbed in your face immediately beforehand.

The fact that Crowley would be enduring neither of those things really helped to maintain the desired level of smugness on his face as he splashed about in the Holy Water, demanding rubber ducks and miracled towels and generally rather enjoying himself.

* * *

They switched back in the park, of course, and then went on to the Ritz, and once they’d done that they ambled back to the bookshop to make sure Adam hadn’t done too bad a job of setting it to rights.

It was there, with a bottle of wine passing between them, that Crowley cleared his throat awkwardly.

“Think I owe you an apology, angel.”

“No, no,” Aziraphale told him, all too aware that Crowley had _already_ apologised for at least one thing that the angel now felt was probably _his_ fault, really. “I owe _you-”_

“Not that, the stars thing, that’s- you don’t owe me anything, it just happened- Angel, I think I’m the reason they never liked you.”

“Hm?” That didn’t make any sense, but he was willing to hear him out.

“Gabriel told me- well, told you- he said they never liked you because they thought you’d set yourself up as some sort of idol. They thought you were being _worshipped,_ because- because you felt loved.”

“Ever since Eden,” Aziraphale confirmed, “Beelzebub said much the same thing.”

“Ze- what?” Crowley ran a hand over his face, looking more exhausted than he ever had, and Aziraphale spared a moment to consider all the enormous miracles Crowley had pulled off lately with barely a moment to rest in between. “Yeah, OK. Well, er. You probably figured out it was me, I- I loved you, always have, still- still do.” He swallowed hard. “And I’m sorry for screwing things up for you. I didn’t know.”

“Would you have stopped loving me, if you had?”

“I- no, probably not,” the demon admitted, “I’d have tried, but… ngk.”

“Well, I hope you don’t intend to try now.” He smiled faintly as Crowley’s eyes snapped up to meet his own, even through the sunglasses. “Did Gabriel happen to comment on that love being missing, when you were up there?”

“No.” Crowley shrugged. “Bit of luck, that, it would have given the game away if he'd noticed-”

“You feel loved, too,” Aziraphale corrected him quietly, “have done for- oh, a very long time now. I couldn’t say when, exactly, but… well, of course you do. Because I love you too, and I can finally say it.”

For several long moments, Crowley froze. No part of him moved, not his eyes or his mouth or his lungs; Aziraphale felt a little tremor of anxiety in the wake of his confession and took advantage of the demon’s stillness to pour himself another glass of wine. Then, just as suddenly as he’d frozen, the demon moved - lightning-fast, his hand flashed up to remove his sunglasses, as if to be absolutely sure of what he was seeing. As if to be sure Aziraphale remembered who and what he was declaring his love to.

“Do you really mean it?”

“Crowley, my dear, you’re not stupid, so don’t act like it.” The rebuke was too fond to hold any sting. “How could I have known you all these years and _not_ fallen in love with you?”

“I- you never- I never thought-”

“Crowley.” Aziraphale took a quick sip of his wine, for courage, and then set his glass aside so he could shift closer to his demon, shuffling along the sofa in a movement as awkward as it was unfamiliar. “If you won’t trust my words, perhaps you’ll trust my actions.”

He leant in to press a kiss to his demon’s cheek - he didn’t want to rush him into anything - but Crowley turned at the very last moment and their lips met instead, shining golden eyes locking with twinkling blue ones. Aziraphale hesitated only for long enough to be sure that the kiss wasn’t unwanted before bringing his hands up to cradle Crowley’s face, kissing him as gently and as passionately as he’d always wanted to - as gently and passionately as the demon had always deserved.

“Believe me now?” He whispered , as he drew away, and Crowley nodded, looking more than a little stunned.

“Then again,” his wily adversary pointed out, “I’m a demon. Not known for believing. Might need reminding, or convincing, every so-”

Aziraphale leant in to convince him again.


End file.
